


Safe Haven

by Anonymous



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:55:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Character Study of Faquarl as he serves Quentin Makepeace in the early stages of his plan.
Relationships: Quentin Makepeace & Faquarl (Bartimaeus)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Anonymous, Bartimaeus Fic Exchange 2019





	Safe Haven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AvinRyd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvinRyd/gifts).

Magicians are all gullible. The irony of ironies is that most of them know this, and are quite happy to exploit it about each other, and yet each of them invariably thinks that he will be the exception. Each of them thinks that he alone has the drive, intelligence and willpower to rule his fellows. I've never met a magician who lived up to his self-image, and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool.

Quentin Makepeace was a prime example of this. Overly round, overly flamboyant and preening even for a magician, and as cut-throat and conniving as any of them, he thought that because he could conceal these latter attributes from his fellows, he was of invincible intellect. Certainly he'd fooled my late master, Lovelace. I'd been around the block a few times, and was not as easily taken in. I knew the vulnerability of magicians: Ego. I flattered his, he summoned me after the exceedingly tragic demise of Lovelace for advice on a few matters, and I gave it to him. Piece by piece over years, I planted and nurtured the idea that would give me my revenge.

"Imagine," I said to him, "an army of afrits like Honorious. Devereaux wouldn't stand a chance."

The corners of Makepeace's mouth turned down. "I am not a warlord," he sniffed, dismissing the idea out of hand. "There is no need at all for such violence." I didn't think he had any objection to violence at all. More likely it just wasn't elegant enough for him. (Or theatrical, or complex; pick one.) I'd been counting on that.

That next month, Makepeace came out with a new play. It was about a thief named Ala-ad-Din, a story I told him, although he took liberties.

Ala-ad-Din was a chubby, unattractive youth who was constantly being rejected by women. (Song 1: Street Rat, sung by a half-naked chorus of women.) His days were spent stealing coins for food and jewelry to give to noblewomen in the bazaar, but they all looked down their nose at him and none would speak to him.

One day, he was approached by a sorceror from the Maghreb, who told him of a magical cave filled with wondrous treasures, even a fraction of which would be enough to make him a prince rich enough to impress any woman. (Song 2: Cave of Wonders.) The sorceror gave the thief a golden ring as a token of goodwill, saying that it was magical and would help him in his time of need, and they would share the treasure between them.

Dazzled by the gold, the thief agreed to enter the cave and secure the treasure. The sorceror mentions a wonderful, golden oil lamp which he would have for himself, and which Ala-ad-Din agreed to bring out for him first. However, the sorceror betrayed the thief and sealed him in the cave when Ala-ad-Din went back inside to collect more treasure, keeping the lamp for himself.

He rubbed it to reveal that it summoned a powerful genie (played by yours truly) who appeared in a puff of multicoloured smoke that even an imp would consider _trés pass__é_. Bound to the rules that govern us all, but far more cheery about it than most of us, the genie swore to be a loyal servant to the sorceror as long as he held that lamp. (Song 3: Friend Like Me, embellished by a half-naked chorus of women.)

Back inside the cave, Ala-ad-Din despaired. He wept. He pounded the walls. He threw quite a dramatic temper tantrum. Finally, he wrung his hands in despair, and thus he released a lesser genie who swore to be a loyal servant to him as long as he held the ring. (No song.)

Under Ala-ad-Din's clever command, the genie of the ring transported him out of the cave in such a way that the sorceror's men, when they returned to clear out the rest of the treasure, would find no evidence of it. Ala-ad-Din said in a soliloque for the audience's benefit that he knew the men would assume that he'd been trapped under the rocks in the cave-in, and not waste time trying to shift those rocks with all of the gold that glittered before them.

Ala-ad-Din, concealed and aided by the genie of the ring, followed the sorceror to the Maghreb where there was a beautiful palace with an even more beautiful emerald-eyed princess inside. (Song 4: A Whole New World, where the chorus of half-naked women danced around the princess to admire and salaciously describe her every trait.)

The sorceror entered the throne hall, barging in past protesting servants. The sultan rose from his throne, and began to berate him for forgetting his place, but the sorceror summoned the powerful genie of the lamp as a show of his might. The genie (again, me) began to break down the walls of the palace. (The same walls I had been charged to build out of plaster and _paint_. Me. Paint.)

The sultan, trembling, begged for his life. The sorceror turned to snear at him. Ala-ad-Din's chance! He jumped up onto the sorceror's back from his hiding place in the rafters. They struggled! Both holding the lamp, both pulling hard, Ala-ad-Din's youthful strength seemed to win over the sorceror's grip. No more was he the chubby, clumsy youth everyone sneered at! Now he was a fighter to be reckoned with, transformed by confidence and the power of the genie of the ring.

With the last of his strength, the sorceror pulled the lamp back towards him, and commanded the genie of the lamp to give him command of all of the powers of the universe. Ala-ad-Din pulled the lamp back in the same moment and commanded the genie of the lamp to end the life of the sorceror.

The genie granted both commands at the same time: He ended the life of the sorceror, by transforming him into an all-powerful genie bound to a golden necklace that fell to the floor where the sorceror had stood.

Finally, Ala-ad-Din was shown as the sultan's new heir, the beautiful green-eyed princess at his side. He held the lamp in one hand, the ring on prominent display, and she wore the golden necklace to which the sorceror-genie had been bound.

The curtain fell. The crowd applauded.

"Not your most original work," I commented to Makepeace the next time he summoned me, far more obnoxiously than I usually spoke to him. Maybe I was inspired by a recent run-in with my old nemesis, Bartimaeus, who was looking pathetic even by his standards but unfortunately just as insufferable as ever. "What did Jane think of it?"

"I don't know what you mean," Makepeace answered with a flush that surprised me a bit. I'd thought he was simply trying to win him over to our side in the fight, not to his personal side in any other way. I'm not the expert in human affairs, but I thought she might be a bit young for him. Also, young women often had higher standards than fat playwrights.

"Are you sure?" I asked him sceptically, with a quizzical glance definitely borrowed from my old foe. "Usually you're a step ahead of me, and about ten ahead of everyone else in the room."

The praise seemed to soothe his ruffled ego.

"Nice touch," I continued, "with the necklace. Did you get the idea from Honorius and his golden mask?"

Makepeace sniffed. "You forget, demon. Honorius wasn't bound to the mask, he was bound to his master's skeleton." He frowned.

"Yes," I said. "After his death. It's not likely to impress _Jane_ if you kill her lookalike, is it?"

Makepeace's frown deepened. "You know," he said, "I think there's an experiment I'd like to try."

He wasn't a step ahead of me. He was ten steps behind. I found out a few weeks later that his experiment was exactly as I'd hoped, summoning a spirit into the living body of a commoner. I privately questioned his choice to perform this in front of Mandrake, who'd foiled his last two schemes, but I wasn't foolish enough to say that out loud. Instead I said very smoothly that it was an impressive idea, if only he could find humans who could control the spirits inside of them. He said that might not be a problem if the vessel was the one to summon the spirit, who would then automatically be compelled to obey the magician's commands.

Not long afterwards, under Makepeace's watchful gaze, a painfully nondescript human invited me into _his_ body. It's not a bad place to live. It's sheltered me from the pain of existing in this world, and with no-one the wiser, given me a safe haven from which to guide the magicians of London to their own doom.

**Author's Note:**

> Pinch hit from a user without an ao3 account: full credit to @Rise on the Bartimaeus server.


End file.
